Nancy Gray, Ph.D., is the head of BioVentures, the technology licensing office and business incubator for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). You don’t want to miss out hearing Nancy tell us about her incredible career. She has worked all over the country in countless roles in the both the entrepreneurial and pharmaceutical fields. She is currently helping oversee the Health Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in Conway!
Learn more about Bootcamp: http://www.arconductor.org/conductor-calendar/bootcamp
BioVentures: http://bioventures.uams.edu/
Hosts:
jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
The Startup Junkie podcast comes to you from Conway, AR this week! Dr. Jeff Standridge drops by to tell us about the new Health Sciences Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. This amazing new camp teaches students the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and gives them the opportunity to formulate new health science ventures. Dr. Jeff Standridge is the team leader of The Conductor, a public-private partnership with UCA and Startup Junkie Consulting driving innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development in Central Arkansas. A great quote from this episode is: “Seemingly small actions consistently applied over time yield massive results”
Check out the Conductor: http://www.arconductor.org/ and follow them @AR_Conductor
For more information about the Health Sciences Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, visit www.arconductor.org/conductor-calendar/bootcamp/
Hosts:
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Casey Kinsey joins us from Lofty Labs, a value added tech consultancy that thrives at the intersection of Web Development and Data Analytics. Casey shares some of his entrepreneurial journey, including the tipping point was when he realized he'd never work for someone else again, accidentally growing Lofty Labs to something larger than himself, and advice for startups who need to hire outside tech help.
Find out more here: http://hirelofty.com/ and say hello @loftylabs
Hosts:
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Kirsten Blowers and Anna Morrison join us to share their experiences about starting and growing a business in Northwest Arkansas. Kirsten started Riffraff seven years ago, starting with only $100 and growing a business now worth over a million dollars. Kirsten was recently named to Forbes 30 under 30 for retail entrepreneurship and Riffraff has nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram. Anna Morrison started Campus Concierge four years ago and employs over 100 tutors in Fayetteville. She was recognized by Arkansas Business as a 20 in their 20s for 2015.
Both of these ladies are total rock stars and fun fact, Anna was one of Kirsten’s first employees at the original Riffraff store!
Get in touch! Follow Kirsten Blowers (@kirstenblowers). Help her get past the 30k mark! Also, go buy some clothes at shopriffraff.com
Check out what Campus Concierge is doing at @docollegebetter on Instagram. Find out more at docollegebetter.com
Hosts:
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
The NWA Venture MashUp is held around Northwest Arkansas to bring the entrepreneurial community together and celebrate a local success story. We had the opportunity to learn from Kenny Tomlin, who has been a technology leader, startup founder, investor and more over his career.
Most notably in our local startup scene, Kenny started Rockfish Digital which grew (without ever raising capital) to be acquired by WPP in 2011.
Kenny is now leading WPP ventures, and working with YouEarnedIt, an employee engagement platform, as well as SubVRsive, a Virtual Reality company.
Learn more about Kenny here:
https://rockfishdigital.com/kenny-tomlin/
Raj Suresh joins us to talk about growing his comedy career, his work in opening and booking the Grove Comedy Club in Bentonville, AR, and shares his entrepreneurial path that started while attending grade school in India.
Pardon any background noise in this episode. We were recording in Bike Rack Brewing Co. on the first night of pouring beer in their new location in the Bentonville 8th Street Market.
Find out more about Raj @rajdoescomedy and www.rajdoescomedy.com
Hosts:
jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
This episode is going to be a little different than our normal format. By way of a connection at Walmart we were introduced to Andrew Berkowitz who runs the Global Startup Movement. He’s interviewed entrepreneurs, investors, and support organizations like Startup Junkie all over the globe – Seriously – Africa, Australia, Silicon Valley, Hong Kong and many more. In this episode, Andrew plays the host this episode, and Jeff and Michael share their take of the history and future of Arkansas’ Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. If you’d like to learn more, you can find Andrew at thegsm.co – enjoy!
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Permjot Valia is a world-class heckler. He also has a strong, diverse background in sales, early stage investing, startups, and mentoring. We were able to get him to the microphone for this short episode during his last visit to Northwest Arkansas – it’s backed with humor, sales psychology, pitch advice and much more. Enjoy!
Hosts:
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Haley Allgood & Michael Iseman from the Startup Junkie team share their lessons learned and takeaways from visiting South by Southwest in Austin and we discuss launching IdeaFame, an idea sharing platform for innvoators and entrepreneurs to gather customer feedback and win $10,000+ to jump start their idea!
We’d also filmed the promo video for IdeaFame staring Michael, and we get an insight into the four alteregos he portraied throughout the week. Big shout out to the professional crew at Element Studios - www.elementstudio.io
Enjoy and stay in touch!
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Haley@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Jeff Charlson, former Walmart VP, and current Bike Rack Brewing Co. CEO joins the Startup Junkie Consulting team as the Senior Entrepreneur in Residence!
In this episode we welcome him to the team, talk about his learnings from a career in Fortune 500 companies, get an update on the brewery, and down a couple of delicious beers. Jeff is a rockstar. You can find him at:
Jeffs@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Hosts:
Jeff@startupjunkieconsulting.com
Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
This episode we welcome Jeff back to the microphone after a brief hiatus, and the conversation couldn’t be confined to one episode, so it’s broken into two. We’re also happy to have Lance Stokes, founder of Lauren James with us for a conversation that covers many topics, including:
Lessons learned and planning for the next B2F Square2Square Run, Walk, & (pub)Crawl (30+ miles of running, walking and drinking local beer).
What is special about Northwest Arkansas, and building the density and gravity for a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The 479 Founders Forum – a group of local entrepreneurs that Lance is a part of – will be hosting a startup job fair, Build 479 on April 20th.
If you’re interested in any of the upcoming events, email Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com
This episode we welcome Jeff back to the microphone after a brief hiatus, and the conversation couldn’t be confined to one episode, so it’s broken into two. We’re also happy to have Lance Stokes, founder of Lauren James with us for a conversation that covers many topics, including:
Lessons learned and planning for the next B2F Square2Square Run, Walk, & (pub)Crawl (30+ miles of running, walking and drinking local beer).
What is special about Northwest Arkansas, and building the density and gravity for a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The 479 Founders Forum – a group of local entrepreneurs that Lance is a part of – will be hosting a startup job fair, Build 479 on April 20th.
If you’re interested in any of the upcoming events, email Michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com and tune in to the next episode (79) for more!
Our guest this episode is Caroline Gschwend who is the most recent victor of the Congressional App Challenge for District AR 03 with her app "defendUS". She shares her story of a growing interest in computer science, building the winning app, and the tools that she used to win.
Check out her App: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjBe90OEInA
Her Tools:
http://stackoverflow.com/
http://www.fotor.com/
Caroline is also an active volunteer with the Community Venture Foundation, whose Executive Director, Jessica Boyd joins as a co-host of this show. Jessica gives an update on the different programs that CVF is running and has on the horizon.
Follow and stay in touch with CVF:
www.communityventurefoundation.org
https://www.facebook.com/communityventurefoundation/?fref=ts
Host:
Michael@startupjunkiespodcast.com
Rolf Wilkin, founder of Eureka Pizza, Local Trade Partners, and the original RazorBucks joins the podcast to share stories and lessons learned from growing multiple businesses by being opportunistic and sticking to his core values.
Rolf see’s opportunity where other’s see risk or potential failure. He is a genius promoter, and remains a student.
Some of his book recommendations include:
Guerilla Marketing – Jay Levinson
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing – Al Ries & Jack Trout
Four Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz
Join Local Trade Partners: www.localtradepartners.com
Eat Eureka Pizza: www.eurekapizza.com
Hosts:
brett@startupjunkieconsulting.com
michael@startupjunkieconsulting.com